There really is no difference between Eastern and faith music. • What does not come well with the Ohovsky wave in the ear is not musical aesthetics, but demographics. • And two painting exhibitions reveal a different periphery.

The power of the present and its varieties are forgotten by us who once dominated Israeli culture with a small group of taste makers who dictated to millions of people what is "good", what is "bad" and most importantly "ugly" in their eyes. They did not feel particularly wealthy, unsure of fully understanding their power, but by virtue of their role as editors and cultural critics, they held a fortune. Although symbolic, yet enormous.

They were kings' followers and ridiculous hangovers, public opinion designers who defined cultural nonsense and what folklore is to the masses. Their words created huge ripples of influence. Their proximity to the plate and their assimilation of scale have determined for millions what is a "proper" Israeli culture and what a venomous and ridiculous culture. As representatives on committees, they made decisions that had a profound effect on what was defined as Israeli culture and its budget. For example, an inside joke in the "Reverse on Reverse" section sent the ping-pong band to represent Israel at the 2000 Eurovision Song Contest.

The future cultural researcher who sketches the cultural elite's liaison tree will discover a scene that will not embarrass the nobility or the "family" of the Supreme Court. It is likely that if anyone reads these words now, he shakes his head in disbelief, perhaps even in a self-conscious section, but the greatest trick of an elite is to convince everyone, including her friends, that she does not exist.

Gal Ohowski was one of the main ones. Editor of "Ha'ir" newspaper, critic of music, culture and everything he deserves. In the late 1990s, Ohovsky was interviewed by Ron Khalili and Shoshana Gabay's pioneering series "Sea of ​​Tears," which is what he had to say about Eastern music: "It all sounds the same, and apart from the voices of the singers who are around, it sounds the same to me. From the outside it sounds shabby, not sophisticated enough, not something you can connect with if you own yourself who is engaged in art and culture, and everything looks like a wild market to you, like a fruit and vegetable market. "

Ten years later, the same Ogovsky found himself in the heart of prime time sitting alongside Spy, a judge of performance for the Argov glow, as if he had always been a dark boy with Gormette and a golden Star of David; Conscientiously demonstrates how an elite retains its power by clinging to the wheel and at all costs.

This week, Uhovsky's lash out on the songs of Yishai Ribo and Nathan Goshen wrote, "I don't like faith music. It's spoiled music. I don't want to hear prayers on my radio; that's why there are stations for believers."

One can get angry at the cultural arrogance that artificially determines what is malfunctioning music, and why the state radio in which the song was broadcast is "my radio." But, as Maimonides wrote in Halacha Teshuva - "Sin is great, let us say to you," Do you remember, "Ohhobsky already has a need for repentance, And Uhovsky will be filming a romp with Ribbon and Goshen at the Western Wall.

Despite the different rhythm of the orchestra, there really is no difference between Eastern and faith music. What does not come well to Ojowski in the ear is not musical aesthetics, but demographics. As a fossilized remnant of the old elites, Uchowski finds it difficult to accept the transformation of the State of Israel from a Zionist society to a democratic Israeli society, multi-voiced and culturally predominantly religious or traditional.

In this case, the measure of grace must be invoked and treated with the final Ohovsky section, with the same understanding reserved for the repetitious repetitive repetition of the same pointless joke - forgive as they do not know otherwise, remember how bad the past was, move on and say: "Blessed we got rid of this punishment."

It is customary to think of the boundaries of the periphery in terms of distance rather than distance. The sands of time covered the wounds of distance, but did not recover or recover from the Mizrahi immigrants, and exclude them from the great Israeli story. Thus, a life full of content and power was created in the Israeli periphery that grew, experienced and lived but out of context.

The last few years have been filled with such works. These include two painting exhibitions that opened this week. Mali Elbaz Almendin, originally from Afula, and Daniela Meller (financing) from Netivot, can read a story of another periphery. Here is the place to discover the pleasures, and to tell that during the Dimona Conference on Culture and Periphery, I asked both of them to present their works. I felt that despite the geographical differences and the painting techniques, their works intersect and tell an old story with a new look.

Meller's works start from the pictures of her old family. Pictures taken during the years of immigration to Israel, but her choice to use a "pioneering", naïve and lavish palette of colors, such as those in which classical Zionism presented the working life in Israel, tell the family story in a new way.

Suddenly the people of the development towns look radiant and hopeful in the pioneering sunlight. This is how they re-paint those years, but not only as suffering, but also in hope. And as Prof. Haim Maor, curator of the exhibition, concludes: "Danielle Meller's" Packed Life "paintings series in the Beer Gallery in Be'er Sheva show a life of self-fulfillment, of luggage and luggage unloading and the discovery of its hidden treasures - humanity, nobility, creativity, culture and tradition. Meller does not cling to the past with sticky nostalgia, but looks directly at times and places that were and are no longer. "

The first time I saw Mali Elbaz Almendin's works, I felt that they were about an imaginary world or coming from another planet. Her paintings are full of intense color, abundance and detail, until each painting appears to contain several different paintings. But zooming in and examining the small details shows the intensity of life that has existed and grown in the periphery, and that Elbaz Almendin shows through the abundant light, in the Mediterranean, in the Levantine charm. Life and memories filled with magic and magic that are torn between tradition and the present, from ancient to renewable. The paintings are so contrasting and "alien" in color to the clichés on the dull gray periphery, enabling to re-read the beautiful life that existed at the edge of the sky and at the end of the desert, even in the development towns.

Art researcher Tal Frankel Alroy writes about the work of Mali Elbaz Almendin, "Embroidery of Life," which presents at the Tel Aviv Artists' House: "Her work reveals not only her being, but also the responsibility she has to make her story our story." And in this sentence, if you want the duty of our generation, to see our history not as a mix of pioneers with immigrants, kibbutzim with development towns, but as our common story - all of us.

Sentences that people say

Aroma Pes Presidents, Beer Sheva

A: I have employees for everything, I have such a cute kibbutznik, I bought him a Landcruiser that will be fun to drive from the office to the courtroom, I told him I have no problem - Tell the married couples, you are the landlord, that this is the kibbutz event hall.

A: Why?

B: Because I know they see me, they think "How does this black man manage the white?" And I'm fine with that, dude, because my money in the bank is neither black nor white, which is mine.

Paintings: Danielle Meller, Mali Elbaz Almendine